How to handle disturbed mind

 Question - Gurudev, how to balance our disturbed minds?

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar  ji - What do we do when the mind is disturbed? You should not get caught up in thinking that it is disturbed. There may have been something disturbing in the environment; something that may have happened. So you should meditate or chant more instead of yelling, screaming, shouting or blaming other people. You should love more people around you. This is samādhyā vyavahāraha, ie. bringing the evenness in vyavahāra, behaviour.

That is what service is. Be aware that you’re doing service. Asking people what service you can do will benefit them. Asking someone what you can do for them, when you are feeling wonderful will benefit the other person but it won’t have that much benefit for you. But the day you feel hopeless and horrible, and that very day you go and ask somebody, ‘What can I do for you?’ Is service and it will bring a revolution in you. It’s very important.

Don’t think you should do service only when you feel good.

This body is there for service.

Let it burn like incense. The incense stick itself burns and spreads fragrance all around.

A wick burns itself and spreads light.

A tree absorbs all the heat from the sun and gives you shade.

A cow eats grass and other waste, and gives you the most nutritious milk. It just eats grass! It eats straw (which has no nutrition in it) and gives you nutritious milk!

Are we human beings much lower in the stage of evolution than them? Are we not even capable of this? This must be the constant reminder to ourselves. You should have a yearning to be useful; to let your every breath be useful to everybody; to let it spread fragrance around you. Each and every one of you is Divine, and God is ever present in every one of us. Evamevāhamāsthitaha. Knowing this, repose in your Self.